Apple has shoveled $704B into buybacks over the last decade, clear signal it’s now an EPS-first incumbent, not a moonshot machine. “Apple Intelligence” is incremental, Siri 2.0 slipped to 2026, and Siri punts tough queries to ChatGPT while Google/Samsung push true AI-first phones. Cash returns run ~11× R&D+capex, propping EPS as innovation feels like hardware refreshes. Unless Apple aggressively ramps product/capex and ships a private, on-device assistant that beats rivals, it risks settling into integrator status rather than originator in the AI era.

The US has never had a sovereign wealth fund, but that may be about to change. Instead of relying on oil revenues or trade surpluses like Norway or Singapore, the American version is being seeded through equity stakes in industrial projects and assets seized by law enforcement. If successful, it could function more like a national endowment—turning today’s subsidies and windfalls into long-term capital with major implications for venture funds as potential LPs.

In 2025, venture-backed IPOs in North America surged, with 13 U.S. companies going public by mid-August compared to just 8 in all of 2024. These offerings, spanning fintech, AI, healthcare, and space, raised nearly $86B at IPO price and most saw strong first-day gains, signaling renewed investor appetite. The rebound has eased a multi-year exit drought, providing liquidity to VCs and LPs while boosting confidence in future fundraising.

GPT-5’s launch highlighted the gap between lofty expectations and the practical realities of AI progress. While bold claims about AGI have been tempered, the real advances may lie in efficiency, cost, and usability rather than sudden leaps in intelligence. Much like electricity or the internet, the trajectory of AI is shaped by bottlenecks in compute, energy, supply chains, and adoption—with transformation unfolding gradually over time.

Augur VC has released Flight Deck, an open-source AI infrastructure financial model designed to unlock the Watt-Bit revolution at the intersection of energy and AI. Flight Deck serves as a pilot’s dashboard for navigating power and compute trade-offs, giving founders, financiers, and operators a common framework to make better infrastructure decisions. By open-sourcing it, Augur challenges the traditional gatekeeping model in venture capital and accelerates collaboration across the ecosystem. At Ventures Edge, we believe this underscores a simple truth: software is no longer a moat—interconnectivity is.

OpenAI’s GPT-5 is its most advanced model yet, using a new Mixture-of-Experts design for faster, more accurate, and more versatile performance across text, images, and audio. It offers deeper reasoning, stronger coding/writing, a massive 400K-token context window, and improved safety. New “Agent” tools connect to personal apps and data, making GPT-5 a true GPT-for-X platform that can power domain-specific assistants in fields like law, finance, or healthcare. It’s a leap forward for startups, educators, and everyday users—while intensifying industry competition, regulatory scrutiny, and debates on AI’s impact.

Figma’s IPO filing included language authorizing blockchain-based common stock, signaling openness to tokenized equity. While they haven’t issued any yet, this move could lay the groundwork for more flexible liquidity options in private markets.

The "Watt-Bit Spread," coined by ex-Microsoft energy chief Brian Janous, highlights the widening gap between the cost of electricity and the high value of AI computation. As AI data centers rapidly scale, demand for power is overwhelming utilities, exposing grid bottlenecks and delays. To bridge this gap, experts propose time-sensitive pricing (Advanced Grid Tariffs), grid-enhancing tech, and major clean energy investments. While efficiency gains may narrow the spread over time, it currently reveals the urgent need to modernize the grid and treat electricity as a strategic resource in the AI era.

As AI data centres drive massive new power demands, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are emerging as a promising, scalable solution for delivering reliable, carbon-free energy. With growing investment from tech giants and venture capital, SMRs could play a key role in easing grid strain and supporting sustainable AI growth.

AI’s explosive growth is driving a massive surge in electricity demand, especially from data centers running large language models like ChatGPT. These workloads consume far more power than traditional computing, putting serious strain on North America’s already stretched power grids. Utilities and tech giants are scrambling to adapt, with investments in nuclear, renewables, and grid upgrades, but infrastructure moves slowly. If energy capacity can’t keep up, AI growth may hit a hard ceiling. The future of AI now depends as much on electrons as on algorithms.

Product-market fit (PMF) occurs when a product successfully satisfies a specific market's needs, leading to strong customer adoption and retention. More than any single milestone, it is a fundamental shift where your product satisfies a real, validated need. Key indicators include high retention, meaningful usage, and customers finding the product indispensable.

At very early stage, investors are betting on you, not your metrics. Learn how to earn and communicate founder-market fit with clarity and conviction, using our DEEP framework as your guide.